“Covering COVID-19? Perhaps Leave the Black Death and Great Influenza Out of It”, Timothy Newfield Writes on the Georgetown Environmental History Blog

14th-century fresco showing the bodies of plague victims piled in a mass grave as demons and angels compete for their souls above — A detail from Tionfo della morte, a 14th-century fresco in Pisa, possibly shows the bodies of plague victims piled in a mass grave as demons and angels compete for their souls above. Long thought painted shortly after the Black Death by Agnolo Gaddi or Francesco Traini, it is most recently attributed to the more obscure painter Buonamico Buffalmacco

In this piece, published on the Georgetown Environmental History blog, Timothy Newfield argues against the trend to compare COVID-19 with other pandemics in history. He explains that “not drawing attention to everything that separates our current pandemic from those of the past may have come at a cost”, as things get oversimplified, anachronisms are committed, and both the present and the past get misrepresented.

Read the piece on the Georgetown Environmental History blog.

Tagged: Media 2020; Timothy Newfield